He starts with the bedroom
by OPYKJ
Summary: Kathryn did take that shuttle at the end of the Night episode. Chakotay picks up the pieces she left behind.


Note: Loosely based on 'Heart with No Companion' byLeonard Cohen. Not the hopeful interpretation of most.

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**He starts with the bedroom**

He starts with the bedroom, emptying the wardrobe into a storage box he's brought with him. There's only a handful of dresses, a pair of light shoes, casual wear for a relaxing evening on the holodeck or on shore leaves. Like him, Kathryn could always replicate the day-to-day pants and grey shirt, the red and black top, and the dark boots when the need arose for a clean uniform.

She's only taken the clothes she had on her back when she left the bridge, he suspects. He doesn't know. She'd organised her getaway out of sight, securing a shuttle hours before her departure using an encrypted security code Seven and B'Elanna have not cracked since she left a week ago.

She couldn't ask the crew to sacrifice two more years of their lives, she'd told him. She wouldn't make that mistake again, she'd said, her mind already made up. She's always been one step ahead of him. Why had he thought this time would be any different? Now she was lost on the other side, lost to a journey the class two shuttle would never manage.

His half-baked mutiny had come too little too late. She'd outplayed him, setting the site-to-site transporter to access the shuttle from the bridge and blocking the tractor beam until she was out of reach. With the vortex in sight, he had had no choice but to follow her orders to free _Voyager_ of the night, leaving her behind.

Sporting a top speed less than half that of _Voyager_, the small spacecraft will take four years minimum to cross the void. And with no planets to refuel from, there's no way Kathryn can make it, even if she could survive being alone in a spacecraft the size of _Voyager_'s bridge. Too short a range is B'Elanna's final verdict.

The shuttle will become a tomb, drifting forever in darkness while _Voyager_ continues towards home.

He shoves the contents of the dresser drawers in the box and slams them shut. After taking a few deep breaths, he turns to the bed. It's big enough for two, like his. Starfleet might frown on fraternisation, but their furniture standard shows they've never wanted to prevent two warm bodies from taking pleasure and comfort in each other. Empty beds and empty souls cry for companionship even if for a single night.

This bed has only ever seen one occupant, though. His bedroom is, after all, touching the common bulkhead which is thick enough not to let any sound through. But he would have seen her bring a late one-night date back to the ship. Maybe, like him, she preferred the anonymity and discretion of shore leaves, with their forgettable encounters and meaningless sex.

He throws the light blanket aside, and his hand trails over the cold sheets. A week after her disappearance, the signs of her last night on board are still visible in the crumpled sheets. The pillow is askew, and he can all but see her sleeping with her arms hugging it like one cradles a child.

It must be fate, or irony more likely, but she slept on the right-hand side of the bed while he favours the left, the same positions they've held for years on the bridge before she forced him to captain _Voyager_. And like her command seat, his hand only touches cold air now.

In the drawer closest to her pillow, he finds the holoimage he'd seen on her ready room desk for many months at the start of their journey, until it was gone one day. Her dog, Molly and…? The name is at the tip of his tongue, and he works to dredge it up from his memory. Mark. Funny how he remembers the dog's name better than the salt-and-pepper man's.

The frame joins her clothes inside the box, and the bed sheets end up in the recycler. There's nothing under the bed and the left-hand bedside drawer is empty. She's not one to spread herself, it seems, and fill up the space around her, while he's pretty sure he's got a couple of books on the side he rarely uses, maybe a pair of socks too. He had expected to come across more of her personal possessions in what is—was—her most private room. She probably just crashed on the bed at the end of too many and too long shifts, no energy left for anything than sleep, like him. Four years of soldiering through and the prospect of seventy more of the same never make for an easy rest, unless one is too tired to care.

Moving to the bathroom, Chakotay spots a jar of soap, a nearly empty bottle of shampoo that smells of her, and a few items of make-up. He is no expert, but the shelf looks bare, as if the long journey home and the night outside have also robbed her of the small pleasures of being a woman.

Catching his reflection in the mirror, he wonders what she had last seen there before making the fateful decision to stay behind. Had it been the resolute Captain's gaze, all sacrifice and tactical rationality? Better one than many; better I than any of my crew, she must have told herself while making her last decision as captain.

Or had it been Kathryn, already lost and alone? Because of him. Because he had not been there for her.

He grips the edge of the sink, head low, his chest hurting. Because he had reminded her of her duty instead, when all she needed was a shoulder to lean on for a few weeks. He couldn't have done more damage if he had yelled at her to snap out of her funk.

When he lifts his head, there are only guilt-ridden dark eyes looking back. He swipes the shelf with his hand, and the mementos of Kathryn's morning routine tumble into the side recycler.

Turning away, he stands on the threshold of the dim bedroom, blankly looking at the empty space void of anything of hers.

He's gone through the same chore before for dead crew members. He's learnt to clear his mind, so it doesn't hurt thinking of the waste of a life now held in small personal things, things whose meanings are lost to anybody than their rightful owner.

It's not working this time.

~_Torres to Chakotay_~

He stirs and straightens his back before hitting his combadge. "Chakotay here."

~_Neelix has just finished a stocktake of the emergency ration store_.~

"So?" What does he care about emergency rations?

But B'Elanna is patient with him. As she has been over the past seven days. ~_He checked the results against the one he did when we entered the void. Then he re-did the inventory. Twice_.~

Chakotay waits, not trusting his voice. He has already guessed where this conversation is going.

~_There's a couple of months worth of one-person ration packs missing. That's it. Despite what she told us, she knew from the start she wouldn't survive the journey, Chakotay._~

No need to ask whom B'Elanna is talking about. He closes the comms without saying a word, then he lifts the box and walks out of the bedroom.

The living room is next, his gifts to her taking pride of place on the shelves: a blue-grey quartz he'd picked up on an unknown planet; a small wooden bird he'd carved while they were marooned on New Earth. On the couch, there's a brightly coloured shawl he'd given her for her very first birthday on the ship, just a few weeks after they had arrived in the Delta quadrant.

They had taken a late afternoon stroll together, past busy shops on a friendly planet, a rare occurrence in Kazon territory. It was getting chilly, and he draped the soft fabric over her bare shoulders. She spun around with the brightest smile on her face, the worries of the past weeks gone with the setting sun.

He tries to catch that slice of time again, but his fingers close on nothingness as she turns away, her back to him and her shoulders bearing red again.

Bringing the shawl to his face, he breathes in deeply, catching a faint scent of her. It's not enough. It's not her. It's just some thing she left behind. Like everything and everyone else.

He wraps the small objects in the shawl before placing them on top of the clothing. It eats at him that he can't be certain she has taken anything personal with her. It's as if she has left for an away mission, sure of coming back. More likely it was to delude him she could be made to stay when all she wanted was to leave.

Twenty minutes later and he has cleared Kathryn's private possessions from her quarters. He stands near the door to the corridor, the box at his feet. Three thin books sit near the silent console terminal, a _Please, take them_ scribbled with his name on a card_. _He slides the note inside the cover of the Dante volumes and puts the books on the lid. A last look confirms the room is bare of any trace of its former tenant, save for memories frozen in his mind.

"Computer, site-to-site transport to cargo bay two."

The box goes inside a grey trunk at the end of a long rack of shelves. After locking the electronic hatch, he types in its owner's name, adds M.I.A after it, the letters glowing faintly in the gloom of the vast space, like its neighbours. With the books held tightly in his hand, he leaves the cargo bay to start his shift.

_Are you ready to captain this ship? _she'd asked, and he'd made a promise right then, a promise he must keep for the captain. But that is not him. Not yet. This ship was not built for him, and the seat on his right will stay empty for the many days and nights to come.

Until the time when he won't notice the void at his side any longer, and that terrifies him the most.

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My thanks to BlackVelvet42, who got me (again!) to change a few things, and MiaCooper for her sharp eye.


End file.
